Critics of the New Atheists argue that they are as religious as those whom they excoriate. Their writings show a polemical scorn for their opponents unknown outside those books of the Old Testament devoted to the prophets. It is not purely contingent that the world’s most famous non-believer, Richard Dawkins, author of the God Delusion, is also the world’s most famous evolutionist, Richard Dawkins, author of the Selfish Gene. The New Atheist creed is Darwinism, a secular world picture that dates to 1859, the year of publication of Charles Darwin’s Origin of Species.
The New Atheists deny this charge vehemently, so naturally as a philosopher interested in the relationship between science and religion I am attracted to the issue, and as an evolutionist I am convinced that understanding of the present demands understanding of the past. Hence, Darwinism as Religion: What Literature Tells Us About Evolution. I argue that, from the publication of the Origin, enthusiasts have been building a. . .